Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Google Drive Template Gallery

As busy educators, we have learn to work smarter. When we can use something that is already made and tweak it to be what we need, it saves valuable time. You probably know that Microsoft Office has pre-made templates for nearly anything you can imagine - calendars, flyers, newsletters, business letters, fax cover sheets, PowerPoint presentations, etc. Did you know Google has a template gallery also?

To connect this handy gallery to your Google Drive, follow these easy steps:

1. From your Drive, click on the red "New" button, go down to "More" and choose "Connect more apps".

2. Search for "Drive Template Gallery" and you will see it come up in the results. Click the blue "Connect" button.

3. It will connect to your Drive and then give you a little confirmation window. You can leave that checkbox marked and then click "ok".

Done! Now you can go back to your Drive and click the red "New" button, go to "More" and then choose "From template". The first time you do this it will probably ask permission for the template gallery to know who you are on Google.

Now you can browse the template gallery using the navigation on the left. If you are part of an organization, you will land in your organization's template gallery, which may be blank. To access all the templates, click on "Public Templates".

When you find one you like, you click "Use this template" and it will make a copy of the document that you can rename and edit to your heart's content. If you need a closer look before you make a choice, you can click "Preview" and the document will open larger.